Using KUBIAK for fantasy football

Hey, new here and first post -

I played a lot of fantasy football about 10 years ago but haven't tried it in a long time, but a few friends have been trying to convince me to join their league. I don't want to look stupid so I thought I should start prep work ASAP.

Since I'm so rusty on FF, I thought I'd try to get some insight as to how folks use KUBIAK. My assumption is that you take the KUBIAK ratings for all players and simply sort them high-to-low, then take the top player on the list when it's your turn to draft. Is that pretty much all there is to it, or have I missed something really obvious?

I see that I can buy the KUBIAK ratings at the online store, but another thread mentioned ADP. What is that and where do I get it?

Thanks in advance!

Posted by: Snake on 20 Jul 2010

2 replies , Last at
01 Aug 2010, 11:01am by
john littig@gmail com

1

Re: Using KUBIAK for fantasy football

by Dan :: Tue, 07/20/2010 - 1:40pm

ADP = average draft position. It tells you about when you can expect someone else to draft a player. It is included in the KUBIAK spreadsheet, and you can find versions of it on sites like this one. If you're drafting online through a site like Yahoo, you can also look at that site's default rankings to get similar information.

In general, you don't want to draft a player if he'll still be available for your next pick. If KUBIAK tells you that Hines Ward is the highest valued player left when it's your turn to pick in the third round, but you can see from ADP that he's usually being drafted in the sixth round, then you should probably take someone else in the third round and wait to draft Ward in the fifth round (or even the sixth round, if you want to gamble that he'll still be around then). Ward plus whoever you take in the third round will give you a better team than Ward plus whoever you'd take in the fifth round. So you should not just take the top player from KUBIAK's rankings.

There's more strategy that you can use when drafting. For instance, I usually consider players at multiple positions, and look a round or two ahead to try to guess what players will still be available at each position then, in order to decide which position to take with my pick. If the highest valued player according to KUBIAK is a WR, but I expect WRs who are almost as good to still be available with my next couple picks, then I might draft a RB or a QB instead and wait to take a WR in the next round. Similarly, if there's a big dropoff in RB value after the next one or two RBs, then I might draft a RB even if he doesn't quite have the highest value according to KUBIAK.

You're also free to decide that you disagree with KUBIAK, and that a player is likely to do better or worse than KUBIAK predicts, and follow your own projections rather than KUBIAK's.

2

Re: Using KUBIAK for fantasy football

by john littig@gma... :: Sun, 08/01/2010 - 11:01am

Don't use KUBIAK as your who to draft next. Use it to identify over and undervalued players by looking at the delta to FO rank vs ESPN.

I've found KUBIAK most valuable in identifying players who are likely to decline. Who to avoid in the early rounds. The public always seems surprised that superstar x is really no longer superstar x. This year it looks like Frank Gore is that guy. He'll go top 7 in most drafts but KUBIAK has him a mid third round level. Next sorting the wheat from the chaff in the middle rounds. At first glance this year, Hines Ward is one of these guys. And late it's good at identifying upside.